'Dutch Roundabouts'

Joe_Horner

So we're going to try changing something that every road user is familiar with to something that every bad driver (the ones who hit cyclists most often) will ignore or get confused by and every bad cyclist will use "as a right" while the careful ones basically carry on like before.

Sounds like a recipe for lots of accidents to me! Does the department suggesting this have shares in Claims-R-Us?

Norman_Castle

From the narration "even at the trial there was some confusion over rights of way". Cyclists are directed across the path of cars. As a cyclist I would not trust motorist to get this right!. There are too many beligerent, set in their ways motorists for this to work.

diesel_dog

What a great idea :rotfl: I'd never even attempt to try that as I can see myself been knocked off by someone who is totally confused by it. Most people?

Hopefully the next idea won't be from somewhere where "toking" is legal as they've clearly had to much to think for one moment the idea would work here .....

Lum

You know if you're going to introduce silly roundabouts to try to help cyclists, how about this one I knocked up while bored. (not to scale)



The red purple and blue lines show the expected path for a cyclist going left/straight/right. I'm not sure on the box junctions either, may be better to remove them and bring the give way lines forward.

Edit: Made a slight change to some of the cyclist give way lines.

Advantages over the Dutch design:

Uses less space
Cyclists going straight ahead get to take a more straight line route
The point where cyclists cross the road happens while car drivers are negotiating the roundabout, not while trying to accelerate out of it
Box junction area provides a chance for cyclists to spot an oncoming car who isn't going to stop
Cyclists turning right only have to cross in front of cars twice instead of once
Cyclists only have to give way to other cyclists (and car drivers who aren't paying attention)
Car-drivers are sort-of used to seeing give way lines across a roundabout in this manner.
Cyclists occasionally bringing traffic to a halt gives people on the minor roads a chance to get out, and they will not be conflicting with the cyclist while doing so.
Can be upgraded to include traffic lights.
Possibility to put sensors on the cyclist entry paths that cause traffic lights to trigger and stop cars on the roundabout giving a clear exit.

Disadvantages:
Cyclists going straight ahead have to cross in front of cars twice instead of once
I don't own shares in the road paint company
It's still not going to help if car drivers ignore the rules completely.
Still needs a fair bit of space, useless for smaller roundabouts.

forgotmyname

I can see problems having 2 lanes on the roundabout. Larger vehicle to one side and you wont know whether to stop or not.

Imagine that in the rush hour. Approach from the road on the left and turning right (3rd exit) You may need to stop 7 times.

How is that ever going to flow?

For half the money that may cost why not just build a 6ft wide steel bridge?

Bicycles are off the roundabout so safer for them. Unattentive drivers have less to watch out for.

And lorries dont have to worry if some twit on a bike has managed to use the 3 inches he left between him and the kerb to get into his blindspot.

Norman_Castle

A 10 mph speed limit on all roundabouts might help. Motorist would have more time to see and react to cyclists. Cyclists can fit in with slower traffic much easier. This would also benefit motorists as joining roundabouts can be difficult with traffic traveling at higher speeds. There would be no difference in journey times due to the short distance at a low speed and it would be vastly cheaper than re-buiding roundabouts.

Lum

forgotmyname wrote: »

I can see problems having 2 lanes on the roundabout. Larger vehicle to one side and you wont know whether to stop or not.

Imagine that in the rush hour. Approach from the road on the left and turning right (3rd exit) You may need to stop 7 times.

How is that ever going to flow?

It depends a lot on the number of cyclists and the typical traffic flows. If there are a huge number of cyclists, or if Critical Mass decide to make an !!!! of themselves yet again, it's not going to work and an under/overpass would be better.

Here I was picturing a main road with, say, a 50 or a 70 limit that has a roundabout to cross a minor road. On this kind of road you're going to have high speed traffic mostly travelling east/west. Smaller versions would only have one lane of course.

If you're a cyclist needing to get across, or turn right, the Dutch design looks like nightmare fuel, cars will likely be doing 30 on the roundabout and 50 by the time they reach the cycle crossing.

This design puts the conflict points at the slowest part of the roundabout.

If there are to be large numbers of cyclists using it then traffic lights would have to be added, this immediately brings the response of "lol cyclists ignore traffic lights" but I'd hope that on a high speed roundabout cyclists didn't ignore give way lines as they won't live long if they do. Adding cycle traffic lights, triggered by sensors, onto this design gives them an opportunity to go where previously there wasn't one, as a opposed to a red light removing an existing opportunity which (some) will completely ignore. I bet they wont ignore a green light.

flyingscotno1

A key point is traffic on a Dutch roundabout system cannot do high speeds.

On high speed roundabouts there would need to be a different approach taken.

spiro

The other thing about Dutch roundabout is cars give ways to cars coming onto the roadabout, you dont give way to cars on the roundabout. Same about having to give way to traffic coming from the right, so if you are driving along the road and a car come out of the side road you have to give way. That car then has to stop at the middle of the road to give way to any car coming from the right. Even after 2 years driving there it made me very aware of traffic all around me.

1886

As a cyclist there's NO WAY in hell I would use one of those roundabouts until any cars/lorries had fully stopped, just like when I walk across a pedestrian crossing. Too many ppl not paying attention will drive on..

In my hometown they've introduced a few of what they call Shared Space junctions or roundabouts. It's basically a junction where nobody has priority. It's not good. There's been a fair few accidents already, I don't like them, nobody knows what to do then both ppl go at the same time